Until California passed its "three strikes" law 10 years ago, no one in the history of the United States had ever received a life sentence for shoplifting. But that's exactly what's happened in California.

Back in 1994, the law promised to send hard-core offenders to prison for good. But in practice, the law has been used to sentence more non-violent than violent offenders. In the last decade, 65 percent of all offenders locked up under the three strikes law have been for non-violent offenses like shoplifting and drug possession. Three strikes has nabbed 354 shoplifters like Robert Blasi, who received a 31-year sentence for stealing a pair of AA batteries, and Nathan Thomas, who shoplifted three packs of T-shirts from a J.C. Penney's store. Gaylon Shirley got 25 years to life for possession of crack cocaine. In fact, more Californians are serving life sentences under the three strikes law for drug possession than for second-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon and rape combined.

What's wrong with California's three strikes law is more than a matter of fairness. It makes no fiscal sense. California spends nearly $31,000 per inmate each year. Inmates over 50 -- and because of prior offenses and the length of their sentences, three-strikers tend to be older -- cost the state well over $50,000 a year. In a new report, the Justice Policy Institute estimates that between March 1994 and September 2003, the three strikes law will have cost California $8.1 billion in incarceration costs. More than half of that total is due to the cost of longer prison terms for non-violent offenders. As the state faces a $15 billion deficit, Californians would prefer to see cuts in the prison budget than schools and other services. But without a change in the law, we will continue to waste billions on unjustifiably long sentences that lock up non-violent offenders.

Three strikes has had a disproportionate impact on racial and ethnic communities as well, despite the fact that rates of criminal behavior are similar among groups for a wide variety of offenses. The African-American incarceration rate for third strikes is 12 times higher than the rate for whites. The Latino incarceration rate for a third strike is 45 percent higher than the third-strike incarceration rate for whites.

Nor has three strikes proven its value in reducing crime. According to the Justice Policy Institute study, New York -- which does not have a three strikes law -- had a much larger drop in total and violent crime than California over the last 10 years. In San Francisco, where prosecutors have chosen to apply the law far less frequently than in Los Angeles, the local violent crime rate dropped 24 percent more than it did in Los Angeles between 1993 and 2002.

A particularly tragic effect of California's current three strikes law is the injury done to the more than 30,000 children of non-violent offenders. On average, these kids will spend nearly six more years without their incarcerated parents than they would have before the law was enacted.

California is penalizing these children by depriving more and more of them of the emotional and financial support their incarcerated parents might otherwise provide.

California's three strikes law cries out for reform. It's time to make the time fit the crime. California's three strikes law should apply only to violent offenses.